A group of Holocaust survivors launched a campaign on Wednesday calling on Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg to take immediate action to remove Holocaust denial from the social media site.
Coordinated by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which “represents the world’s Jews in negotiating for compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution,” the #NoDenyingIt campaign spotlights Holocaust survivors urging Zuckerberg via recorded messages to remove Holocaust-denying groups, pages and posts, which should be considered hate speech, according to a report by the Associated Press.
The campaign aims to promote a single message: “Publications that deny the Holocaust on Facebook is hate speech which must be stopped!”
Some of the featured survivors include Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, Anne Frank’s stepsister Eve Schloss, Kristallnacht survivor Charlotte Knobloch and Auschwitz survivor Roman Kent, the head of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors.
In his recorded message to Zuckerberg, Kent said, “Most of my family was murdered, as well as many of my friends. You must know that Holocaust denial is nothing short of hate dialogue. There is no denying it.”
Schloss said, “I was born in Vienna and had to flee from the Nazis. I ended up in Holland where I was arrested with my whole family and sent to Auschwitz death camp. There, only my mother and I survived. I lost all my family. Many, many family members. There is no denying it! Remove Holocaust denial from Facebook.”
“We take down any post that celebrates, defends, or attempts to justify the Holocaust,” Facebook told AP. “The same goes for any content that mocks Holocaust victims, accuses victims of lying about the atrocities, spews hate, or advocates for violence against Jewish people in any way. Posts and articles that deny the Holocaust often violate one or more of these standards and are removed from Facebook.”
In 2018, Zuckerberg created a controversy when he said that posts denying the Holocaust would not be removed since he believes “the best way to fight offensive bad speech is with good speech.”
